WotC Wizards Q1 2023 revenue up 12%

[bedir than]

Book sales are definitely down. If I had to guess, I'd say that most of that is due to licensing deals made for merchandising for the film.

Except that they said the exact opposite to their investors


Unless your suggestion is that licensed goods for the movie released four days before the quarter ended outsold physical books by such an extent that the Hasbro share of those goods earned them double digit growth, again in four days?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We should agree Hasbro strategy is making money with the multimedia franchises, from different sources: comics, toys, videogames...

Hasbro wanted to become a media empire, but after the death of the former CEO the changed the plan. Now they are focused into the digital market.

 

[Sparky McDibben]

They exceeded analyst expectations, which is why the stock went up despite profits going down.

It's up less than a dollar from yesterday's close, which is peanuts. My point, though, was that WotC is not measuring their success vs prior year, they are measuring to budget. Ergo, we don't actually know how well D&D did, in WotC's eyes.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Except that they said the exact opposite to their investors


Unless your suggestion is that licensed goods for the movie released four days before the quarter ended outsold physical books by such an extent that the Hasbro share of those goods earned them double digit growth, again in four days?

Not at all. They don't need to sell the licensed goods in four days - they need to sell the license to licensees earlier in the quarter. The D&D BRAND then becomes more successful for the quarter. The licensees are the ones who need to worry about whether or not their merchandise actually sells to people without WotC having to worry about it. As far as I understand it (and I admit, I don't know a lot about licensed merchandise beyond selling it for thirty years) that's why a company would want to license their brands.

Also, your tweet doesn't say anything at all about how D&D books have been selling, so I don't know how it's the "opposite" to what I suggested. I sell D&D books for a living (among other things) and while the current ones are still selling well, they're not selling anywhere near as many as previous offerings. I can't imagine how my experience in this wouldn't also be true across the board.

 

[Parmandur]

This quite literally does not add up when looking at their numbers, unless WotC has something other than MtG and D&D that lost a lot of sales / was discontinued. Nothing comes to mind though

EDIT: they do say it grew 13% though, go figure...

"Tabletop gaming revenue increased 13%. Digital and licensed gaming revenue increased 9%, bolstered by the addition of D&D Beyond."

I think Hasbro is engaged in some funny business to hide something not doing well, but not D&D or Magic: those are the screen protecting something failing in digital, methinks. WotC became the umbrella for all digital initiatives from Hasbro, for all their brands, I'm the past year and a half. Looks like something very much did not do well the past year.

 

[Parmandur]

Not at all. They don't need to sell the licensed goods in four days - they need to sell the license to licensees earlier in the quarter. The D&D BRAND then becomes more successful for the quarter. The licensees are the ones who need to worry about whether or not their merchandise actually sells to people without WotC having to worry about it. As far as I understand it (and I admit, I don't know a lot about licensed merchandise beyond selling it for thirty years) that's why a company would want to license their brands.

Also, your tweet doesn't say anything at all about how D&D books have been selling, so I don't know how it's the "opposite" to what I suggested. I sell D&D books for a living (among other things) and while the current ones are still selling well, they're not selling anywhere near as many as previous offerings. I can't imagine how my experience in this wouldn't also be true across the board.

Not to discount your own experience, but the Amazon numbers still seem strong. It is worth noting that they called out Beyond as doing gangbusters, so that could have an impact on physical books

 

[Scribe]

Also, your tweet doesn't say anything at all about how D&D books have been selling, so I don't know how it's the "opposite" to what I suggested. I sell D&D books for a living (among other things) and while the current ones are still selling well, they're not selling anywhere near as many as previous offerings. I can't imagine how my experience in this wouldn't also be true across the board.

Forgive me as I'm ignorant of the details, but would WotC cutting out the middle men and selling direct on Amazon account for it?

 

[bedir than]

It's up less than a dollar from yesterday's close, which is peanuts. My point, though, was that WotC is not measuring their success vs prior year, they are measuring to budget. Ergo, we don't actually know how well D&D did, in WotC's eyes.

From the call to today it went up $7. For a stock that started April at 52 that's not peanuts.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Forgive me as I'm ignorant of the details, but would WotC cutting out the middle men and selling direct on Amazon account for it?

It wouldn't account for GROWTH. There's just NO WAY that the current BOOKS have outsold previous ones. It's absolutely possible that they've done better at Target and Amazon than they've done for me - but only relatively so. I've never experienced a situation where my personal sales were not indicative of the trend at large. Or when they were, it was a very, VERY obvious blip (usually because it was something that I personally hand-sold that outsold something more mainstream).

But there are many ways for D&D the brand to make more money in spite of the books dropping off a bit.

 

[bedir than]

It wouldn't account for GROWTH. There's just NO WAY that the current BOOKS have outsold previous ones. It's absolutely possible that they've done better at Target and Amazon than they've done for me - but only relatively so. I've never experienced a situation where my personal sales were not indicative of the trend at large. Or when they were, it was a very, VERY obvious blip (usually because it was something that I personally hand-sold that outsold something more mainstream).

But there are many ways for D&D the brand to make more money in spite of the books dropping off a bit.

they also added a new channel with DtC that included digital bundles